Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Bryan (April 22, 1936 – December 15, 2009), better known as C. D. B. Bryan, was an American author and journalist.[1][2]
Biography
He was born on April 22, 1936, in Manhattan, New York City. His parents were Joseph Bryan III and Katharine Barnes Bryan; after they divorced his mother married author John O'Hara.[3]
Bryan attended Berkshire School in the class of 1954 and earned a Bachelor of Arts at Yale University in 1958, where he wrote for campus humor magazine The Yale Record.[4] He was also a member of the fraternity St. Anthony Hall.[5]
His first novel, P. S. Wilkinson, won the Harper Prize in 1965.[6]
Bryan is best known for his non-fiction book Friendly Fire (1976). It began as an idea he sold to William Shawn for an article in The New Yorker, then grew into a series of articles, and then a book. It describes an Iowa farm family, Gene and Peg Mullen, and their reaction and change of heart after their son's accidental death by friendly fire in the Vietnam War.[10][11] One of the real-life characters featured in the book was future Operation Desert Storm commander H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
It was made into an Emmy-winning 1979 television movie of the same name, for which he shared a Peabody Award. It's also been cited in professional military studies.[12]
^ ab"A Prize Case of Angst". Time. February 5, 1965. Archived from the original on February 3, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2009. Novelist Bryan, John O'Hara's stepson, was educated at Yale, served in the Army during the peacetime occupation of Korea, and after his discharge was caught in the call-up of reservists during the 1961 Berlin crisis.
The New York Times, February 1, 1965; October 21, 1970; May 12, 1976; August 9, 1983.
The New York Times Book Review, January 31, 1965, p. 4; November 1, 1970, pp. 46–47; May 9, 1976, pp. 1–2; October 14, 1979; August 28, 1983, pp. 10, 15; June 11, 1995.
Washington Post Book World, December 27, 1970, p. 6; May 2, 1976, p. L5; August 21, 1983, p. 3.
External links
Boxes in the Attic ("Stories discovered inside 67 boxes of books, letters, photos and other items left to me and my sisters by our father, author C.D.B. Bryan, who passed away in December of 2009") – reminiscences about Bryan by his son, Saint George Bryan.
C. D. B. Bryan Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.